Osteoarthritis is a progressive disease that results in the breakdown of the macromolecular constituents of articular cartilage. Much work has been done examining the effect of mechanical loading on animal models of osteoarthritis. However, there is a paucity of data collected from human articular cartilage. Therefore, it is unclear how mechanical loading affects human articular cartilage and whether animal models adequately represent the response of osteoarthritic tissue. The aim of this project was to assess the response of articular cartilage to mechanical loading. Specifically, the study will employ non-osteoarthritic human cartilage, osteoarthritic human cartilage and bovine cartilage, all examined under the same loading conditions. The interaction of duration, magnitude and frequency will also be assessed. Cartilage response will be measured in terms of metabolic synthesis and the expression of GADD45-beta and DDR2. [unreadable] [unreadable] [unreadable]